TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. “History never looks like history when you are living through it” – John Gardner, former Secretary of Health

This Day in History – April 21

April 21, 1961 – The Minnesota Twins played their inaugural home game at Metropolitan stadium but came away with a loss against Joe McClain and the Washington Senators. The Senators score 2 in the top of the ninth off reliever Ray Moore and pin a 5-3 defeat on the Twins. 24,606 fans attended the Twins first home game and team ownership was disappointed that the game was not a sell-out with about 6,000 seats sitting empty. Temperature at game time was 63 degrees. There were no line-up cards available so Twins manager Cookie Lavagetto and Senators manager Mickey Vernon had to scribble their line-ups on pieces of scrap paper.

April 21, 1967 – Tony Oliva of Minnesota lost a home run due to a base running blunder. Playing in Detroit in the third inning, Cesar Tovar was the runner at first base. Oliva hit the ball out of the park off Denny McLain, but then passed Tovar between first and second. He was credited with a single and one RBI for scoring Tovar. In the ninth inning Oliva hit another home run and this one counted.

April 21, 1985 – The Twins had won the first two games of the 1985 season under manager Billy Gardner but then proceeded to lose nine in a row before John Butcher took the mound for the Twins against the Oakland A’s at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium on this day and shut out the A’s on just 3 hits facing only 28 batters and threw just 81 pitches. The game lasted just 1 hour and 55 minutes and Kirby Puckett went 3 for 5 and knocked in both runs.

April 21, 1994 – Eddie Murray set a major league record with his 11th switch-hit home run (home run from each side of the plate) game as the Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins 10-6 at the Metrodome.

April 21, 2007 – The Twins had started the 2007 season with 19 consecutive stolen bases before Torii Hunter gets caught in the 8th inning of their 17th game of the season. However; the Twins beat the Royals at Kauffman Stadium 7-5 and Joe Nathan performs a rarity during his 6th save of the season when he retires the Royals 1-2-3 in the ninth getting Esteban German, Tony Pena, and David DeJesus all looking at 3rd strikes. Getting the side out 1-2-3 for a save, all on called third strikes is rare feat and was last done in 2003 by Jose Valverde.

April 21, 2012 – With his leadoff single in the ninth inning, Josh Willingham extended his season-opening hitting streak to 15 games. He improved upon the record he set Friday night, the longest hitting streak by a player to start his Twins career. And he tied Kirby Puckett’s 1994 Twins record for the longest season-opening hitting streak. His streaks ended as he went hitless on April 22nd.

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